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Tag Archives: Jane Austen

WORD

captious [kap-shuhs] adj.1.apt to notice and make much of trivial faults or defects; faultfinding; difficult to please 2.proceeding from a faultfinding or caviling disposition: He could never praise without adding a captious remark3. apt or designed to ensnare or perplex, esp. in argument: captious questions

STANDPOINT

About 80% of the people I know are married with children, working the archetypal American work week. Of that 80%, probably 95% seem quizzically amused when I respond with disdain toward things like early morning phone calls, early morning obligations and mostly anything at all involving the early morning. And, just so we’re on the same page, I define “early morning” as any time before 10am.

You see, I’m a bartender. And my hours are different from most. I go to work an hour or two before the rest of the world is calling it a day and, most days, I climb into bed only a few hours before everyone else’s alarm clocks blast them out of sleep.

It’s not like I haven’t spent chunks of my life getting up early. I have. But, simply, I’ve rejected it as something I’m unwilling to participate in. And that doesn’t sit well with most because they’ve trouble grasping a scenario in which a grown man wakes up at 11am on a Wednesday morning. Logically, such a man must be doing something terribly wrong with his life. Why else would he be asleep instead of being “responsible?”

And it’s pretty interesting and hilarious because, regardless of race, religion or class status, most everyone who wakes when it’s still dark, gets the kids off to school before heading out themselves to their more traditional 9 to 5 job, all increduously shake their heads and roll their collective eyes when they find out someone their own age is not doing the exact same thing.

But what’s truly wrong with choosing an alternative lifestyle? Being single and childless in your mid-thirties can hardly be classifid as a crime against humanity. It’s perfectly acceptable to be a little selfish in the pursuit of personal happiness. There’s no sin in allowing yourself to be as free from responsibility and restraints as possible. Nothing dishonest about wanting to be convivial and well-rested.

There’s more of us out there than I’m pretty sure most of you realize. And one day, we might just wake up before noon and get organized in an attempt to remind society that, hey, we’re people too. We’ll covince “acceptable” folks we’re not all that bad and, yes, we can conduct ourselves properly at dinner parties and other customary affairs.

Mark my words. There’ll come a time when we walk freely among the rest of civilized society. Granted, it’ll be early afternoon after we’ve checked our email and gotten a little something to eat. But, we’ll be there all the same. Can’t wait!

QUOTATION

Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium. → Cyril Connolly

→ While I write this, I’m struggling with which kind of Facebook status annoys me more. Those in which people, who are more than a few years away from turning 40, wonder publicly about when they “got old,” or those in which people try to convince their friends on the virtue of being a Republican/Democrat/Whatever. More on this, I think, in tomorrow’s post.

→ For the record, from here on out, I’m going to be updating this blog three times a week. That’s just the how I’m rollin’. I’m fully aware it will render this blog not exactly “daily,” but we’re all going to keep a stiff upper lip here.